[Edge][CPU] An explicit KV budget must beat the legacy env var

`CpuPlatform.check_and_update_config` ends with a block whose own comment
reads "Lagecy setting":

    env_key = "VLLM_CPU_KVCACHE_SPACE"
    if env_key in os.environ and os.environ[env_key] != "":
        cache_config.kv_cache_memory_bytes = int(os.environ[env_key]) * GiB

It runs unconditionally, so `--kv-cache-memory-bytes` is silently discarded
whenever the env var is set -- which it has to be on CPU, or the engine tries
to claim most of the machine. Two consequences for edge serving: the budget
can only be expressed in whole GiB (parsed with `int()`, so the smallest
non-zero cache is 1 GiB), and vllm-omni's per-stage `kv_cache_memory_bytes`,
which is how the deploy YAMLs express per-stage budgets, has no effect at all
on CPU.

Verified by allocation rather than by memory, because allocation cannot drift:
with the env at 1 GiB, asking for 128 MiB produced the same 17 881 cache
tokens as asking for nothing, and with the env at 4 GiB it produced 71 527 --
the explicit value never applied. After restoring the obvious precedence
(explicit wins, env stays the default for callers that set nothing) the same
request yields 2 231 tokens, the 128 MiB it asked for.

The Qwen3-TTS CPU overlay now sizes stage 0 from the model -- 112 KiB/token,
so 2 seqs at 2048 tokens needs 560 MiB, not 4 GiB. Stage 1 is left alone on
purpose: Code2Wav is a generation stage whose cache is not a plain attention
KV, and under-sizing makes vLLM preempt by recompute, which on a single-stream
edge deployment is a stall.

What this saves in resident memory is deliberately *not* claimed. VmRSS on
this host moves 1.2-2.0 GB between identical runs, because it counts the
mmap'd checkpoint's file pages; an earlier 3.1 GB figure came from a
comparison that changed the model file as well as the budget and does not
stand. RssAnon is the metric to use and that measurement is still in flight.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
This commit is contained in:
tzhouamandClaude Opus 5 committed 2026-09-12 14:16:01 +08:00
1 parent 5f27f60bde
commit ca4dd105e4
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@@ -637,3 +637,60 @@ def _patch_cpu_aot_compile_cache_load() -> None:
_patch_cpu_aot_compile_cache_load()
def _patch_cpu_explicit_kv_cache_memory() -> None:
"""Stop a legacy env var from overriding an explicit KV budget on CPU.
``CpuPlatform.check_and_update_config`` ends with (vLLM 0.28, the comment
is theirs)::
# Lagecy setting
env_key = "VLLM_CPU_KVCACHE_SPACE"
if env_key in os.environ and os.environ[env_key] != "":
cache_config.kv_cache_memory_bytes = int(os.environ[env_key]) * GiB
-- unconditionally, so ``--kv-cache-memory-bytes`` is silently discarded
whenever the env var is set, which it must be on CPU or the engine tries to
claim most of the machine. Verified: with the env at 1 GiB, asking for
128 MiB produced the same 17 881 tokens as asking for nothing, and with the
env at 4 GiB it produced 71 527 -- the explicit value never applied.
Two consequences for edge serving, which is where KV size actually matters:
the budget can only be set in whole GiB (the env is parsed with ``int()``,
so the smallest non-zero cache is 1 GiB), and a deploy config that sets
``kv_cache_memory_bytes`` per stage -- which is how vllm-omni expresses
per-stage budgets -- has no effect at all on CPU.
This restores the obvious precedence: an explicit budget wins, and the env
remains the default for callers that set nothing. Spark-X2.5 needs 56 KiB
per token, so a 2048-token single-stream deployment wants 112 MiB where the
env's floor is 1 GiB.
"""
from vllm.platforms.cpu import CpuPlatform
if getattr(CpuPlatform, "_omni_explicit_kv_bytes", False):
return
base = CpuPlatform.check_and_update_config.__func__
def check_and_update_config(cls, vllm_config):
cache_config = getattr(vllm_config, "cache_config", None)
explicit = getattr(cache_config, "kv_cache_memory_bytes", None)
base(cls, vllm_config)
if explicit is None or cache_config is None:
return
if cache_config.kv_cache_memory_bytes != explicit:
cache_config.kv_cache_memory_bytes = explicit
_PATCH_LOGGER.info(
"Restored explicit kv_cache_memory_bytes=%d (%.3f GiB); "
"VLLM_CPU_KVCACHE_SPACE would have overridden it.",
explicit,
explicit / (1024**3),
)
CpuPlatform.check_and_update_config = classmethod(check_and_update_config)
CpuPlatform._omni_explicit_kv_bytes = True
_patch_cpu_explicit_kv_cache_memory()